Extend Syngas Yield through Increasing Rich Limit by Stratified Air Injection in a Single Cylinder Engine 2020-01-0958

Dedicated exhaust gas recirculation (D-EGR®) concept developed by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has demonstrated a thermal efficiency increase on many spark-ignited engines at both low and high load conditions. The syngas (H₂+CO) produced in the dedicated cylinder (D-cyl) by rich combustion helps to stabilize combustion at highly dilute conditions at low loads and mitigate knock at high loads. The dedicated cylinder with 25% EGR can typically run up to equivalence ratio of 1.4, beyond which the combustion becomes unstable. By injecting fresh air near the spark plug gap at globally rich conditions, a locally lean or near-stoichiometric mixture can be achieved, thus facilitating the ignitability of the mixture and increasing combustion stability. With more stable combustion a richer global mixture can be introduced into the D-cyl to generate higher concentrations of syngas. This in turn can further improve the engine thermal efficiency.

This study investigated the possibility of extending the rich limit by stratified air injection in a single cylinder engine. A custom modified spark plug with air passage was used to realize stratified air injection. The emissions were sampled with a Horiba 5-gas analyzer. The exhaust was also bag-sampled and H₂ concentration was analyzed.